The Climbing Wall

Okay, so here's how it started. Marge, my book club friend, forty-nine years old and built like a truck driver, looked at me over her wine glass one Friday and said, "Joy, honey, you do yoga. That's not climbing. Climbing is hard. You're soft."

I nearly choked on my pinot grigio. Soft? Me? I'm forty-four, I've held a plank for four minutes, and I once won a fitness challenge against guys half my age. "Soft? Marge, I could climb anything in that gym of yours."

She just laughed this big wheezy laugh and refilled her glass. "Sure you could. That's why you've never tried, right?"

Well. What was I supposed to do with that? You can't let a challenge like that sit there. So the next night, I drove out to this climbing gym in an industrial park that smelled like rubber and old sweat, and I signed the waiver with a flourish while the teenager at the desk gave me the bored rental-shoes spiel.

The place was not what I expected. Fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, walls covered in these plastic holds in every color, chalk dust hanging in the air like the whole building had dandruff. The floor was these thick mats, worn gray in the spots where people actually fell. Which, I would learn, was everywhere.

I started on the beginner wall, obviously. The green route. It looked easy, these big friendly holds spaced like a ladder. How hard could it be?

The answer was: harder than my yoga ego was ready for.

I got about four moves up and my forearms started burning. Nobody tells you about the forearms! Your hands just stop working. I reached for the next hold, grabbed it, and my fingers peeled right off. I dropped onto the mats with a thump that knocked the air out of me.

"Wow," I said to nobody. "Okay. That's fine."

I got up, dusted chalk on my hands from the bucket they had, and tried again. Made it a little further that time, maybe two-thirds of the way, before my arms gave out again and I skittered down the wall like a falling spider.

And that's when I noticed the guy watching me.

He was sitting on the mats off to the side, arms folded across his chest, just looking. Big guy, dark hair going gray at the temples, maybe forty-five, wearing a staff shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He wasn't laughing at me, which honestly would've been easier. He was just watching, like I was a video he hadn't decided about yet.

I gave him my best don't-mess-with-me look and went back up. Third attempt, I was doing okay, really, I had a system now, until I got to the last section and my hand slipped and I came off the wall again, landing hard enough to bang my elbow.

"You're pulling with your arms," he said. First thing he'd said all night. His voice was low and sort of gravelly.

"Excuse me?" I was flat on my back, so the effect was maybe ruined.

"Whole body's strong enough to climb. You're hauling yourself up with your arms like it's a rope pull." He stood and walked over. "Hamish. I set the routes here."

"Joy. And I'm doing fine."

"Sure you are." He looked up at the wall, then back at me, and there was this little smile, like he found something funny that wasn't me exactly but was adjacent to me. "There's a shortcut on that green route. Where the wall jogs left. Most people miss it."

Oh, that tone. You know the tone, the one men use when they think they're being patient with you? I bristled all over. "I don't need shortcuts, thanks. I'm figuring it out."

"Never said you needed one. Said there is one." He shrugged those big shoulders. "Take it or leave it."

And here's the thing. I was gonna leave it. I was fully prepared to climb that stupid green wall out of pure spite while he watched. But my arms were jelly and it was already my third fall, and I figured, fine, I'll take his tip, and then I'll climb it faster than anyone he's ever seen, and then he can eat his little smile.

"Fine," I said. "Show me."

He walked me over and pointed at a hold I'd honestly never noticed, tucked up under the jog in the wall. "From there you can skip three moves. It's a longer reach, but you're tall enough."

I grabbed it, skipped the section like he said, and yeah, okay, it worked, and I topped out on my very next try. I slapped the final hold and looked down at him with what I'll admit was a smug grin. "See? Told you."

"Sure." But he was watching me with more interest now, I could tell. That appraising look. Not creepy, just... weighing me. Like a horse at auction.

"Try the blue," he said.

The blue was harder and I fell twice more, but I was getting it, slowly, the whole legs-not-arms thing slowly clicking. Hamish stayed nearby the whole time, not helping, just occasionally saying things like "hips closer to the wall" or "stop looking down," in that same flat patient voice.

Then he says, "Watch the purple. I want to show you something." And before I can ask what, he's on the wall, moving like water. I swear this man didn't climb, he flowed. He got to a spot where the holds spread way apart and just... stepped across a gap I wouldn't have attempted on a sidewalk, one long reach, his body stretched out and calm, and he made it look like nothing.

"Your turn," he said, dropping down to the mats without a sound.

"Are you kidding? That reach is a foot longer than my arm."

"Then find your own way. That's the game."

So I tried it. I got up to the gap, and I thought, okay, I can't reach the hold, but what if I go right, around, there's a little hold there, and I committed to it and immediately knew I'd messed up. My foot swung off, my fingers tore loose, and I dropped, flailing, and then his hands were on my waist, catching me before I hit the mats, setting me down steady.

He didn't let go right away. His hands stayed on my hips a beat too long, big warm hands, and I could feel them through my leggings, and I looked up at him and he looked down at me and we were both silent for a second.

"You okay?" he asked.

"Fine," I said, maybe a little breathless. "Thanks. You can let go now!"

He did. He stepped back with that same annoying half-smile, arms folding again, and I decided right then, standing there with chalk on my hands and his warmth still on my waist, that I was going to wipe that smile off his face tonight if it killed me.

Because I know myself, and I know what that look does to me. That's how I ended up doing eighty thousand burpees after my divorce. That's how I got a black belt in a style I don't even like.

"The purple route," I said, wiping my hands on my leggings. "I bet I could do it in under sixty seconds."

He raised an eyebrow. He had good eyebrows, dark, expressive. Ugh. "You've been climbing for an hour."

"And I'm a fast learner. Sixty seconds. Easy."

"You'd fall twice before the halfway point."

"Would not."

"Would." He tilted his head, looking at the purple route, then at me. "You really want to do this?"

"I really do."

"Okay. Dinner. You make the purple route clean in under a minute, I buy you dinner anywhere you want. You don't..." He shrugged. "You owe me dinner. And you come back Thursday and climb the route I set for you."

"Set for me? What does that mean?"

"It means I think I know exactly what would beat you," he said, and his voice had something then, something underneath the flatness, and I felt it in my stomach, low and warm and unwelcome.

"That's cocky."

"That's Thursday." He checked the clock on the wall. "Gym closes at ten. You want a head start on the bet or you want to do it with an audience?"

"With an audience, obviously. I'm not scared."

"Great." He grabbed the timer off the desk and walked back over, and I caught him glancing at my ass once on the way, quickly, thinking I wouldn't notice.

Oh, I noticed. And I wasn't even mad about it, which was a whole other problem I'd have to deal with later. Right then I